The effect of the papillary renal cell carcinoma subtype on oncological outcomes

The study aimed to compare the clinicopathological features and prognosis between type I and type II papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC) and to investigate whether the subtypes of PRCC would affect oncological outcomes. A total of 102 patients with PRCC were recruited, of which 42 were type I PRCC and 60 type II. The clinicopathological features and oncologic outcomes of the patients were evaluated. The type II cases had a higher WHO/ISUP grading (P < 0.001), T (P = 0.003), N (P = 0.010) stage and stage grouping (P = 0.011) than the type I. During a median follow-up period of 61.4 months, 1-year cancer specific survival (CSS) of the type I was 100%, 5-year CSS was 95.2%, the 1-year CSS of the type II was 96.2%, and 5-year CSS was 75.7%. The univariate analysis showed that subtype, symptoms, TNM, stage grouping, WHO/ISUP grading and surgical methods appeared to affect prognosis of the patients with PRCC. However, multivariate analysis revealed that only stage grouping was the independent risk factor. After the stage grouping factor was adjusted for the analysis, there were no statistically significant differences in CSS (P = 0.214) and PFS (P = 0.190) between the localized type I and type II PRCC groups. Compared with type I PRCC, type II had higher pathological T, N stage and WHO/ISUP grading. However, it was the Stage grouping that made a great difference to oncological outcomes, rather than the subtype of PRCC.